That was never 11 days we had just then

Why yes, that was rather a long gap between posts. Mainly it was because of marketing: selling stories linked to events and dates, and though the ones I've been fully occupied writing about are marking the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic a whole month from now, and Anzac Day even further away on April 25, there's been a bit of a rush to do it because I've got some travelling coming up. On Sunday I'm being whisked off to Buenos Aires on LAN's lovely business class, and thence to Iguazu Falls, Lima (again) and then, most excitingly, Easter Island. I once reviewed a book that was set there - rather unimaginatively titled 'Easter Island' - by Jennifer Vanderbes, who had clearly done a great deal of research into ancient angiosperms that she didn't want to waste, so by the end of the book I was quite the expert (temporarily) on fossilised pollen. Never heard the term 'palynology' before? Now you have.

Then after I've been home for less than a fortnight, I'm away again, for an incredible 6 weeks this time, to Europe: partly private but mostly work, and it's going to be very busy. Fun and interesting, but busy, and tiring. It doesn't help that there are three very old animals in this house, who miss me when I'm gone, and who so far have always been here when I've got back from a trip but, one day...

So anyway, the Titanic. I keep bumping into it, so to speak - of course, in Ireland last year, when we went to Cobh which was the ship's last port of call before setting off across the Atlantic, and where there was a really good exhibition in the old railway station there. Then there was an astonishingly, not to say anally, comprehensive travelling exhibition that I came across while I was in Copenhagen, that absorbed me for the best part of two hours while rampaging Hamburg football fans laid waste to the city outside (well, almost). We'll be going to a new one at Greenwich Maritime Museum while we're in London; there are, I discovered, others in Southampton, Liverpool and Cherbourg, all Titanic sister cities that I've been to; and several in Halifax, Nova Scotia where I haven't been, but have been increasingly hankering to go to over the last few years. Lots of the recovered bodies were buried there, including one J. Dawson, who was actually James, a boiler-room hand, but that doesn't stop a steady stream of fans of Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack going there to leave red roses on the gravestone:

Mellow

Perfect, perfect day today: clear, sunny, warm after early freshness, the colours bright and saturated. And on a Sunday, too! It was perhaps especially precious having come straight after what the media are in the habit these days of excitably calling a 'weather bomb', the word 'storm' apparently not dramatic enough any more. It was more of a damp squib (always want to say damp squid) here in Auckland, a bit of wind and rain that blew a bucket across the back lawn - but further south in Taranaki, where I went in November, it really was very violent and ripped the roofs off many houses and punched holes in walls with flying fence posts. Nothing on the scale of the terrifying tornadoes in the US, but bad enough for us, who've had more than enough lately in the way of natural disasters.

Where do I go from here? I could focus on Taranaki, and my Parihaka story, because I was at a meeting a couple of days ago that was addressed by some people from Maori Tourism, that began with an unexpected reference to flatulence and moved smartly on to some fairly abstract concepts and included a lot more te reo than I was expecting or, to be honest, understood (to my shame). Thank goodness I wasn't MCing, the person who was fortunately much more fluent in public-occasion Maori than I could dream of being. The atmosphere was very friendly and down-to-earth, but there were some delicate matters glanced over that it would have been good to be able to talk about properly: like Maori people getting tetchy when offenders are called Maori in news reports, that being a term that they don't really use themselves, identifying much more with their tribes. Fair enough - though 'Caucasian' is just as general, of course.

Or I could branch off from the disasters reference to say how appalled I am that the Bishop of Christchurch has just announced the decision to pull the cathedral down as it's too expensive to try to repair what is now a dangerously unstable building. It's very hard not to come over all xenophobic and say that it's because she's a Canadian, in the job only 3 years, and doesn't understand what the cathedral means to the people of Christchurch and the country as a whole. Doesn't matter if you're Anglican or not, religious or not - that building is the heart and soul, symbol and icon of Christchurch and it has to be saved.

Or I could go with the weather, how lovely it was to be out in the garden unbitten by mozzies, doing some weeding in the hen run, much to the girls' delight (all those worms and other tasty insects revealed), remembering with nostalgia how a blitz like that back at our country cottage in England would have finished with a satisfying bonfire down in the paddock: happy hours of raking and poking, finally and reluctantly going back up to the house, thoroughly kippered. And, as I pulled out armful after armful of the crocosmias that have taken over the hen run, thinking how true it is that a weed is just a plant in the wrong place. Viz: this photo of the gardens at Muckross House in Killarney, Ireland, of crocosmia, in the right place.

Catching up

I've been MIA all week because of a new laptop and the unconscionable effort it's taken to get it set up and transfer all my files. Worst of all was migrating my old emails which took an entire weekend of Googling and wrestling with nerd-speak, getting familiar with esoteric things like .dbx files and trying over and over and over to shift files from Outlook Express via Windows Live to Outlook (for which I'm going to have to pay actual money to use). Thanks a lot, Microsoft. But it's done. Yay.

So what has passed me by in the meantime? Australian soldiers on leave getting drunk in the Middle East - sign of the times that that was a news story, but they were in Dubai, where the official relationship with alcohol is uneasy and it's a behind-closed-doors, consenting-adults sort of activity. Westerners who live there - and there are very many - have to get a licence to buy wine from a few special shops and then have to transport it straight home. You can only drink in hotel restaurants, and even then you're meant to behave yourself. (They frown on PDAs too, public displays of affection between the sexes, though it's all on for women and men to hold hands with their same-sex friends: it's rather sweet to see a couple of swarthy young Arab men in robes striding along with their pinkies linked.)

A dinner-table conversation about an upcoming fancy-schmancy family wedding at Hampton Court House (presumably near the actual HC) led to a mention of Blenheim Palace, which was followed, according to the law of coincidence, by a TV documentary that night about that amazing place, with some fantastic photography. It's a private home, always has been, but it's truly called a palace, and it's awesomely beautiful. And then there are the Churchill stars: handsome John, the first Duke of Marlborough, and Winston of course. Unmissable.

And yesterday a cruise liner inexplicably did a Titanic off the coast of Italy, with shameful losses of life. I wonder if it will give pause to those people who have booked for that trip in April to follow the course of the actual Titanic? The last place their ship will call at before crossing the Atlantic is Cobh, in southern Ireland, where we went last year and were happily absorbed by the excellent exhibition in the old railway station there. They've got a lot of artefacts (though not as many as in the travelling exhibition I saw in Copenhagen, which will be back in Barcelona by now) including a letter in a bottle that was thrown overboard as the Titanic sailed and was delivered to the writer's mother after his death in the sinking. And then I imagine the tourists will call in at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where many of the recovered bodies were taken and buried. I'd like to go there one day. I wonder if I will?

Giant inflated - head?

When I say that my head's all over the place, I mean that literally (almost). Busily catching up with writing after - what? eight trips away so far this year? - I've been working on stories about England, Ireland, Macau, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and Mauritius, and lining up Seattle and more Australian stories to do next. The NZ stories were Waiheke Island and Lake Wakatipu, which is rather perverse of me since most of the action at the moment is right here in Auckland.

That blimp-like affair is the inflatable rugby ball containing a full-on Tourism NZ blitz to convince potential tourists to get themselves out here: it's usually positioned somewhere significant overseas. Right now it's on Queen's Wharf on the waterfront ('Party Central' they insist on calling it) and I had a look at it the other day, though even soon after it opened on a Friday lunchtime the queue was too long for me to bother with. Another day - there are enough of them still. Weeks to go yet till it's all over. Sigh.

I did go in The Cloud (aka The Slug) though, which was much nicer than it had promised to be when first proposed, and had a couple of huge screens showing an imaginative presentation of uniquely Kiwi features, from Weta Workshop to computerised cow eartags, all mixed in with Scenery, that made me a little pink with pride - even though the actual displays were somewhat mystifying. It probably was clever, inventing a way of making plastic chain mail with no joins - but what is it for? There was a lot of interest in the jetpack, but it looked a cumbersome beast and nothing like in the comics. The wood-veneer Vespa was, er, novel.

Most diverting, though not Kiwi at all of course, were the Segways being used outside by staff pretending to be serious, swooping up and down the wharf transporting sections of temporary fencing. Ubercool, as ever.

Till next time

It was a perfect day to leave England: fixed in the memory on a warm summer's day, driving across the Cotswolds where the rolling fields of corn are golden and ready for harvesting, the trees are green and stately, and the butter-yellow stone of the houses in the villages was set off by the sweet peas, hollyhocks and lavender growing in the borders and flower-boxes.

We've been away for about four weeks. It seems ages, looking back over where we've been, the things we've done and seen, the people we've caught up with. Paris, London, rural England, Oxford, Stratford, Wales, Ireland... Punting, a West End show, a jaunting car, a progressive supper, a game fair, palaces and cathedrals, pubs and restaurants, gardens and galleries. Horses, dogs, goats, cattle, camels, donkeys and ducks. Pork pies, cider, Eccles cakes and cream teas. Boats, buses, cars, carts, trains and planes.

It's been fun. But it will be good to get home. (Especially on Air NZ business, thanks to airpoints and an upgrade, yay.)

UPDATE: Air NZ Business? Bit of a disappointment: looked good with the pods and all, and the service as always was excellent, but when it came to bedtime, instead of the seats reclining all the way back, what happens is that you stand up to allow the back-rest to fold forward to join up with the foot-stool. The resultant bed is perfectly flat, but the padding is minimal and it's like sleeping on an ironing board. It's a clever idea that doesn't work.

Slainte!

Couldn't leave Bunratty this morning without a too-quick look at the Folk Park: one of those outdoor museums where buildings have been relocated or reconstructed to make an old-time village. This one works particularly well, the trees and gardens looking really well-established and natural, and the buildings so pretty. And then of course there are people around like Mike here, in the school room, cane at the ready and full of chat about how back in 1847 ("Black '47") the children were so weak and tired from lack of food that it was no problem for a single teacher to be in charge of 130 of them. There were six books to teach from and "only one answer to a question" which were all learned by rote. Mike remembered having to kneel on prickly sticks for being late to school and threatened with expulsion if he looked at a girl, even his own sister - and he was born in 1952! (I speak as a Coronation baby myself.)

The main focus today was the Ring of Kerry, a 100-mile drive around the Iveagh Peninsula which promised great scenic spectacles that didn't initially deliver - I have a high standard for coastal drives, I am a New Zealander after all - but in the end all was well. Beetling great bare mountains, rocky coast, clear blue water, distant clusters of white-painted crofts, trails of stone walls down the slopes... No complaints.

And finally dinner in a pub in central Kilkenny, with a glass of cider beside me, a beef and Guinness pie inside me, a duo belting out 'Black Velvet Band' and other old favourites right in front of me, and my last day in Ireland ahead of me.

Horses - four courses

Busy, busy day - proof again that there's more to see and do in even a small corner of Ireland than you can ever hope to squeeze into a laughable 5 days. First there was Waterford's Treasures: rooms full of silver and gold and crystal chandeliers with more than 200 prisms sparkling - and also more pleasingly ordinary stuff, like a tin clockwork toy Miss Busy-Bee the Typist and posters of Ireland's first pop superstars The Royal performing their smash hit The Huckleback in 1964.

Then a quick look at Waterford Crystal over the road where a grizzly bear 50cm high would set you back 30,000 euros, or an American football helmet - should you have a use for a glass one - a mere 17,500; and where Noel the duster claimed to have "nerves of steel" but that when accidents happen "it pays to run fast."

At Cashel Rock, that scourge of the tourist - scaffolding - was all over one side of the castle/cathedral like a rash, but down at Bru Boru, a cultural project, we were delighted by a mini-show of singing, dancing and music of such a high standard, we wished could see the proper evening show. Mind, it's hard work tapping along to that infectious music, so my ankles would be weak after that.

The horses came at Coolmore Stud, where a dozen or so stallions live in enviable elegance: lawns, gardens, trees, their loose boxes like pretty little houses, and endlessly pampered - though having five men watching narrowly when you have your end away, filming every moment, must take the edge off the luxury.

And tonight a four-course medieval banquet at Bunratty Castle, a tall and imposing 15th century castle, where Tom the Butler, some pink-cheeked wenches, an accomplished harpist and a lugubrious fiddler thoroughly entertained us while we ate a surprisingly tasty dinner. A long day, happily ended in the comfort of the Bunratty Castle Hotel's big, soft bed.

Street life

"Yur fookin' hoortin' may! Yur fookin' hoortin' may!" Moment of drama on the streets of Kilkenny as a man who stole a big bottle of vodka was forcibly detained by a couple of burly store detectives while the Garda came screeching to the rescue, siren and lights going.

It was pretty much all about the streets today: wandering Waterford's maze of lanes before being escorted on a guided tour by the famous Jack Burtchaell, who's been doing it up to six times a day for 21 years and so can be forgiven a certain lack of energy in his performance. Still interesting, though, covering 1000 years of history in an hour and a mile, with plenty of digs at the British, plus sex, violence and the drink. Waterford, a Viking city, is older than all the Scandinavian cities and is third in age only to London and Paris, so there's a lot to talk about; although some things can't be seen any more - the Waterford Crystal factory closed in 2009, alas, though there's still glass being blown here.

Then to Kilkenny through the green as countryside, where the sturdy castle - invaded today by hordes of Germans - is surrounded by a knot of little cobbled lanes lined mostly, it seemed, by pubs. It looked a lively place, colourful and pretty, and it was a shame we had so little time there.

Back in Waterford, we ate in the completely empty Munster bar before following our ears down to the riverside quay to watch a troupe of scout bagpipe band members practising: they were good, though it was odd to hear Scotland the Brave. It was windy and cold, so we had to go afterwards to the magnificent Granville Hotel for a warm-up: all shiny brass, stained glass, comfortable chairs and original caricatures of golfers and jockeys; and birthplace of Thomas Francis Meaguer, who did many things including designing the Irish flag, but for me was special because at one point he was sent to Van Diemen's Land - otherwise known as Tasmania, where I went in February. So that's today's connection.

Good Knight

How I do hate the word 'uncomfortable'. Mostly when it's used by a gynaecologist bearing down on me with a plastic speculum; but also when it's uttered by the captain of a ferry I'm trapped on for the next two hours. Crossing from the Welsh port of Fishguard to Rosslare in south-east Ireland, we were shunted about by 2-metre swells and it was no fun at all, even with a Scopaderm patch behind my ear: it's a long time to stare at the horizon and concentrate on not hearing all the honking up going on elsewhere in the cabin.

But eventually we got back onto terra firma and wound up at the world's "oldest intact still-working lighthouse," said William, choosing his description carefully to avoid any possibility of challenge. Hook Head in County Wexford has had a light since the 5th century, and an actual lighthouse for 800-odd years, so I reckon he's pretty safe. It was a fine and stirring place to be on a blustery day with dark cloud and bright sun and, ever a sucker for lighthouses, I would have been pleased to be there on those grounds alone - but one-third of the way up its 150 steps, we came across an amazing coincidence.

Regular readers (hollow laughter) will recall that earlier in this trip, we stayed at the Inner Temple in London - a privilege accorded to members only. Just metres from the door of Dr Johnson's Building was the Temple Church, built in the 12th century by the Knights Templar, they of the Crusades. We went in and looked at, amongst others, the effigy of William Marshal who made King John sign the Magna Carta in 1215 and thereby also made his own name, amongst the legal fraternity at least.

But something else he did was to found the town of New Ross in Wexford and, to encourage trade there, also built at the entrance to the river, Hook Head lighthouse, where there's a picture of his supine statue back in London. Connections, eh? Love 'em.

Green for go

And there you have it: Auckland's Sky Tower which apparently, surprisingly, was the first city landmark anywhere to be floodlit green on St Patrick's Day, three years ago. Can that be right? Seems amazing, considering that the river in Chicago is dyed green and all that sort of thing. [Update: It must have been the Guinness. Of course, they meant that it was the first thing to go green in the world that day. Time zones and all that. D'oh!]

Anyway, that's what we were told, and it would be churlish to doubt a generous host who supplied such a steady stream of delicious nibbles, and wine, and of course Guinness - which went down very smoothly, I must say.

I'm looking forward to getting back to Ireland in July. It's such an interesting, and pretty, and ancient place - and the locals do know how to have a good time, to be sure.

Sláinte!

St Patrick's Day today, and this evening I'll be at the Sky Tower to see it go green, the first landmark to be bathed in emerald light as the Green Beam goes around the world. Here, then the Sydney Opera House, London Eye, Empire State Building and Toronto Tower, plus Cape Town's Table Mountain - all a bit of fun, and sure now, couldn't we all be doing with some?

Other than seeing the colour change, I dare say there'll be drinking and jollity as Discover Ireland are the hosts, something they do very well. It'll be hard to say no to a drop of black velvet, though I hope I can avoid a pint glass this time: in the bar at the top of the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, there was absolutely no choice, much to the delight of unfinicky aficionados, who did well out of the barely-sipped glasses abandoned by shrinking tourists.

The last time I was at the Sky Tower I was all togged up in an unflattering orange boiler suit and a most uncomfortable harness to do the SkyWalk around the ring at the top. It's a walkway about a metre wide with no guardrail - just safety lines attached to a rail overhead. The guides get their kicks by making everyone lean backwards over the void, sitting on thin air while way down below little cars and people go about their business.

It was fun - though more fun if I'd been with friends - and not that scary at all, really. I'm always more amazed by how height flattens the landscape than scared by the thought of falling. It's wonderful how convenient a lack of imagination can be. Though when we watched the bungy jumpers hurtle off the platform, I wasn't the least bit tempted.

Anyway, Sláinte!

Mounted is the best kind of fun

The last time I had such a very sore bottom was when I was 13 and had been bucked off my pony at riding school: I ended up (sorry) having to have physio to the area in question administered by a handsome young masseur, and the whole experience was hideously embarrassing. If I have to have a re-run of that treatment, this time it will be - hmm, just as embarrassing, actually. I think the window of opportunity when I could have bared my bot with impunity, possibly even pride, was more of a port-hole, really.

Most of my recent injuries have been down to clumsiness and/or stupidity, but for a large part of my life they've been equine-induced. It comes with the territory when you spend a lot of time with a large animal with a small brain and a super-sensitive flight instinct. I've been stamped on and trampled, bitten and kicked, bolted with and bucked off - but not, thankfully, rolled on, because that's when things can get very nasty. I bear no grudges, that's just horses for you, and they've given me far more pleasure than pain.

I've done my time trailing round in circles at riding schools; been on a glorious high-country trek in North Canterbury as a teenager that eventually led to my starting this travel-writing lark; worked as a groom in South Australia exercising flighty polo ponies and fighting off giant spiders; and then again in England looking after a handful of hunters and spending every day riding around the most beautiful countryside, part of a community that still welcomes me.
I went on a brilliant cattle drive back in South Australia, where we spent five days clopping peacefully through the Outback enjoying the detail of that colour-saturated scenery, which even at a walking pace changed continuously. Here in New Zealand I battled for a whole week with an eager thoroughbred who wanted to be at the front, please of a back-country trek with 80 other riders as well as walkers and mountain-bikers, an annual charity event that gave us access to private land and looked after us brilliantly in the evenings with entertainment, excellent food, hot showers and massages. I've cantered along the beach in the Bay of Plenty and galloped through Lord of the Rings country, indulging in a private Rider of Rohan fantasy down near Queenstown.
And in Ireland last year I went for a ride with Attila the Hun-garian and a couple of other aficionados along the beach near Westport. We splashed through the shallows along the Atlantic coast on a brisk afternoon, the sun shining on us while cloud swirled around nearby Creagh Patrick, a 770m hill surmounted by a tiny stone church that thousands of bare-footed pilgrims climb to on Reek Sunday, the last Sunday in July. Out in the bay were 300 islands, one owned by John Lennon ('s estate), where the treacherous current made picturesque lighthouses a necessity, and white boats sparkled against a background of dark grey cloud. It was wonderful to get out in the fresh air and do something active; and when we stopped off at the pub on the way back, and Lesley suggested a glass of hot port - because every pub in Ireland apparently has a kettle behind the bar - well, that was the icing on the cake.

St Patrick + 1

So I missed the obligatory St Patrick's Day post because I was out revisiting Peru and Ecuador at a World Journeys evening. I did say to a teacher at school at morning tea, "And did you congratulate the girls for all remembering to wear green today?" but he just frowned and said, "Do you mean their uniforms?" so that was wasted effort.

When we went to the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin as part of a hop on, hop off bus tour, I laughed when the driver barked "Please stay seated!" as we drew up. Once inside, though, where throngs of young male pilgrims pretended to take an interest in the barley and the hops, the ostrich advertisement and display of bottles, all the time pushing forward eagerly to the last level where the bar awaited with splendid views of the city and river, but most of all their free pint of velvet, I understood. Apparently, if you're not too fussy, you can do well here, as many tourists don't care for the taste and push their glasses away after only a sip or two: so aficionados can down pint after pint - pulled with good humour and skill by the barladies, who swirl in a shamrock on top, two at a time.

I couldn't decide if it was the Guinness or simply being Irish that led one young woman to direct us thus: "You need to go up another couple of levels. This is the fifth, and you want the eighth."

Hooray for CaCO3

I'm not ignoring the disaster in Haiti, but there's nothing I can add to what's been said. I haven't been there or anywhere in the Caribbean, but I've seen poor people living in shanties in South America, India, South-East Asia, even Australia, and I can imagine only too well how it is for them, already amongst the world's unluckiest, to have such devastation visited on them. I've donated what I can, and I hope you have too.

Moving on.

Today's post celebrates the pleasure that calcium carbonate gave me last year: specifically in the form of limestone karst. This is because I'm writing a story about The Burren in western Ireland, where the hills look as though they've been spread with silver icing. It's actually a layer of limestone, combed through by deep parallel grooves, that has been exposed by glacial action. In European geological terms, it's young, but the human history there is ancient, with standing stones erected five thousand years ago - that's older than the Pyramids. In spring, the rock bursts with flowers, 650 species, but when I was there in autumn, it was bare, gleaming pewter against the rust of the heather.

It was lovely to see the limestone in its natural form, having already enjoyed it made into the drystone walls that edge the green-as fields; and processed into the building blocks of the many child's-book castles we traipsed over in Wales; gloriously carved on the soaring cathedrals of Gloucester and Lincoln: and, on a domestic scale, made into the beautiful honey-coloured cottages of the Cotswolds.

But it was most spectacular in Thailand, in Phang Nga Bay off Phuket, where the turquoise sea lapped an astonishing sight.

>>> ...Limestone always puts on a good show, but what Phang Nga Bay has over, say, Castle Hill in Canterbury, is the drama of 40-plus water-sculpted islands rising high and sheer out of an opal-coloured sea. Hung with trails of vegetation and undercut by wave action, these craggy karsts seem to teeter precariously; and when our boat moored close to one, we were shown that some are even less solid than they appear.

Transferring into inflatable dinghies, we were rowed beneath the overhang where we found hidden tunnels scoured through the stone by the waves. The tide was high, making the roof so low that we had to lie flat in the boat as it squeezed into the dark, where our torches picked out tiny bats dropping from the ceiling to fly ahead of us. It was like travelling through a funnel: as the roof came down, the sides pressed in so that we had to fit our fingers into the pock-marked rock to pull the dinghy along. The surface felt rough, and just as the thought was forming that sharp edges and inflatable boats are not a happy combination, we heard a sudden hiss. Alarmed shrieks were followed by loud sighs of relief as we realised the air-letting was deliberate so that, slightly slimmer, the boat could slip through the tunnel to the secret lagoon in the centre formed by the collapse of the cave roof.

Called ‘hongs’ or rooms, these doughnut holes are magical places: as we emerged from the dark, a snowy white egret lifted from the gnarled roots of a leggy mangrove growing in the middle and flew up into the circle of blue sky where a sea-eagle was already soaring high above us. Primitive-looking amphibians, mud-hoppers, crept out of the still, quiet water onto the tree roots and it felt like the beginning of the world...

[Pub. Press 13/7/09]

This non-sporting life

So, last night the NZ soccer team, the All Whites, qualified for the World Cup finals in South Africa next year, and "a jubilant nation erupted". Apparently.

We're not a sporting household. I didn't grow up in one and nor are my children. People say, "How about the big game, then?" and, never mind the teams, I won't even know what sport they've been playing.

It's hard for some people to understand not being the least bit interested in sport; and the kindest of them are sorry that I'm missing out on the thrills and camaraderie - but as far as I can see, if you're a Kiwi, there's not a lot in the way of thrills. More like a ton of misery. Even the All Blacks, I understand, can't be relied on to deliver in crucial games. No, I'm perfectly content for my ups and downs to be controlled by sunshine and rain, and leave rabbles of unpredictable, badly-behaved and overpaid young men well out of my life.

Having said which, I did enjoy the gaelic football All-Ireland final at Croke Park in Dublin a couple of months ago. True, I felt a bit of an imposter amongst 82,000+ rabid fans all painted and dressed in their colours; and because of my red jacket, chose to support Cork, who lost, so that was disappointing. But it was a grand spectacle, and highly entertaining being such a fast and clearly skilful game, and for me was absolutely a novelty - so it was a well-spent afternoon that I don't regret. But it was part of my tourist experience: I couldn't keep it up back home.

Ein Guter Tag

When the Berlin Wall went up, I was only a child, and it passed me by as one of those unfathomable things that grown-ups got up to, and Germany was impossibly remote and foreign.

When it came down, I was much older, much closer, and I'd not only learnt German, but had been to Germany - yet it all still pretty much passed me by. In my defence, the First-Born was little more than a week old, and I was in such a fog that everything outside a very tight little circle was passing me by.

I do recall sitting by the fire watching it on TV with the First-Born in my arms thinking "Wow, this is big", but not actually able to summon up the energy to get excited about it.

I've never been to Berlin. After all those years of learning German, and living for 17 years just across the Channel, I've only spent 3 days in Hamburg - but the Baby, who wasn't even thought of 20 years ago, has been to Germany on exchange for two months, and visited Berlin, and Munich, and even Neuschwanstein, which I had a poster of on my wall for years.

But Hamburg was fun: we stayed at a B&B with a nice lady whose spare room had the BIGGEST BED I've ever seen, before or since - honestly, you could have fitted an extended family in there - and wandered around the city centre admiring all the wonderful old buildings that somehow escaped the Allied bombs (the landlord of our local pub, an ex-RAF pilot, said he'd never been to Hamburg "but I have seen it from the air"). We had a delicious meal at a restaurant where the starter was so tasty but so filling that we weren't able to do justice to the main course, and the chef came marching out of his kitchen when the plates were cleared to ask what was wrong. It was a chilling moment, but I was proud to be able to explain to his satisfaction what the reason was.

Unfortunately, our other restaurant experience was more shaming: we had taken the ferry across the city's pretty lake (impressed by the efficiency and brilliance of using electro-magnets to moor the boat at the jetties) and wandered around the leafy suburbs before having another lovely meal. We were into our last few hours in Germany, and after spending the previous couple of months working our way back to the UK from NZ through about 16 countries, it had become a game to be left with as little local currency as possible. So we chose our courses carefully and chortled when we worked out that we would have no change left over this time. Except, sitting there with the bill and a pile of notes and coins, our nicely full stomachs sank as we suddenly realised that we hadn't factored in the tip.

So we ran. Another dark day in the history of Anglo-German relations.

And the photo? An Irish wall - so much prettier than that ugly concrete thing.

No, I didn't order fush and chups

Watching an old episode of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' last night, I was thrown by Lucy Lawless appearing as herself and speaking in her own Newzild accent. Even though I'm getting used to Aussies in mainstream American programmes like 'House' and 'ER', it's still odd to come across Kiwis speaking in our accent over there: it kind of destroys the fourth wall (though of course it was one of the many joys of 'Flight of the Conchords').

Accents can lead to some dislocating moments: like when I was in Scotland - home to some pretty impenetrable accents itself - and in a pub in Bonnyrigg outside Edinburgh, our waitress seemed to have none at all. Turned out she was from Christchurch - probably the only non-Polish waitress in the whole of Scotland. I was so busy asking her about what she was doing there that I completely forgot to request an explanation of this banner on the wall outside, which still has me foxed.

And my English sister-in-law, despite having already spent some days with us on our recent visit, was still sufficiently caught out by my accent when I was talking about a service in Dublin Cathedral, to say in astonishment, "A circus? In the cathedral?"

Cheers!

Purely in the interests of research, we've visited a pub or two on our journey around these islands, and I have to say it's been a pleasure, whether jammed around a table of friends in The Glasshouse on the side of May Hill, eating Welsh lamb shanks in Y Brennan tucked beneath Harlech Castle, or sitting by an open peat fire in Sean's in Athlone, allegedly Ireland's oldest pub.

In Ireland live music was a constant: original guitar ballads, keyboard comic songs, traditional diddly-dee on fiddle and bodhrin, or unaccompanied singing. I was pleased not to leave Ireland without hearing Black Velvet Ribbon and Wild Rover played apparently without irony; but best of all, and hilariously unexpected, was one old man's alternative version of Flowers of the Forest. It was an absolute joy: Google it.

Arthur's Day

1759 was when Arthur Guinness established his brewery, world famous in the world for the velvety stout; and 250 years later, on 24 September at 17:59, Guinness aficionados all joined together to raise a pint to Arthur.

"Don't grab!" snapped the barmaid, struggling under the weight of a tray with 8 full - and free - glasses, as the time approached and some people were still empty-handed. One minute to six, a count-down and then, "To Arthur!" - across Dublin, Ireland and even the world. It was a stirring moment in the annals of mass advertising.

Arthur Guinness gave Dublin much more than a smooth pint of porter: on a long ramble around the streets today with Pat Liddy, the last in our series of knowledgeable enthusiasts, we saw many of the pies in which the Guinness family had a finger. We also ate one - with the stout in it, not any fingers - served by Jamie, from Christchurch.

And later that night I stood on the ferry, watching Ireland slip away into the dark as so many emigrants did 160 years ago, on the way to Liverpool and beyond.

Both sides now

In the 1870s the landed gentry at Strokestown Park had the leisure to worry about the handicap of left-handedness in their children and fitted the schoolroom with desks where the attached chair was offset so that it was only possible to write with the right.

Meanwhile, the tenant farmers on the estate had more basic worries: food, rent and Major Denis Mahon, the land agent, who advised his employer that the best solution to the problem of starving, poverty-stricken tenants was "mass emigration" as it was cheaper to send them to Canada than to the local workhouse.

At Swinford, Tom Hennigan's family was luckier: they managed to pay their rent and avoid eviction, and sitting in the small cottage today by the glowing peat fire, rain falling softly on the thatch and geese honking in the yard, he told us his stories. We'd seen the baskets before, the half-doors, the loft beds; but Tom was born in this bed, came home from school to eat potatoes baked on this hearth, sat in the firelight to hear these tales told over and over. Today he made it all real for us.